Web auditing

Hi Eduardo

Do a search on 'metrics' and also 'Webtrends' on this site. You'll get some useful white papers and forums posts that cover most of what you ask about (panels covered less well).

This is a big topic area and there are a few key ways you might think about it:

- quantitative versus qualitative site measurement (see my recent post in this forum on measuring value). Qual might include online surveys, focus groups, usability sessions etc. Quant is more data driven. You seem to be focusing more on the data analysis side of things?

- standard versus custom metrics. There are standards though people understand them differently... And the standard metrics are, arguably, not all that helpful. Have a look at the NetGenesis white paper "E-Metrics: Business Metrics for the New Economy" (more at http://www.e-consultancy.com/knowledge/whitepapers/whitepaper_view.asp?id=28) You need to define for each client which metrics are most relevant to them.

- what level of service do you want to offer? This is quite key for you to understand. Is this to complement and support an existing service (e.g. web site design) or do you see yourself becoming a leading provider of web auditing services? An example of the latter in the UK would be ABCe (http://www.abce.org.uk/frameset.asp), the digital audit arm of ABC. Auditing is all they do. Their value is in providing media owners with independent validation of their statistics to help them sell their advertising space. But this is a big operation, and it is costly, and not quick, for the media clients to be audited. Do you want to offer this level of service or is there already a provider like this in Spain? If you want to offer a web audit service as a value add to the other things you do then you need to break out the different areas and level of service you want to offer. On the quant data analysis side of things, for example, you can go from a Webtrends log file analysis kind of solution (around £10,000 for the software) to a more robust and comprehensive tracking and analysis solution such as NetGenesis (more like £200k), right up to bespoke data warehousing and analysis (£1m+). Depends on your market.

Two things I would say from my experience:

1. The hardest parts are a) defining the metrics, business rules and processes (e.g. reporting process) and b) getting hold of clean data and NOT the technology itself.

2. Clients have been unwilling to pay what it actually costs to do web auditing properly for a long while. You should be careful you don't end up spending a lot of time and money on something the market won't pay for unless you can afford to treat it as R&D time i.e. investing for the future opportunities. With the market down turn clients have actually been more willing to do proper web audits as they are under pressures to demonstrate results, ROI and come up with hard answers not suppositions.

Hope this helps

Ashley

On 09:07:24 8 May 2001 campus77 wrote:
>I am trying to establish the different steps I should
>follow in order to give our customers a Web auditing
>service. Is there any standart?. Have you any check list
>of the main points to follow?. Any publication related
>(White papers, PDF, Books, etc)?. I have taken information
>about:
>
>1 - Web search registering
>2 - Check efectivity
>3 - Check hits in your web site
>4 - Analise the user behaviour
>5 - Benchmark
>6 - Make use of panels
>
>Any information is wellcome
>
>Regards
>
>Eduardo Gomez
>Tecfoto S.L
>Barcelona
>Spain